The Tudors' Portrait Artist: Holbein

Not Just the Tudors

History Hit

History

4.8 • 3K Ratings

🗓️ 7 December 2023

⏱️ 49 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

How we visualise the Tudors largely comes from their portraits painted by Hans Holbein the Younger. Between 1526 and 1543, he captured the elite of the Tudor court and beyond - Henry VIII, Anne Boleyn, Jane Seymour, Thomas Cromwell, politicians, courtiers, soldiers and countless others.

Every Holbein portrait seems to have begun with a drawing taken at a live sitting. An exhibition of these drawings in now on at Buckingham Palace and allows us to see Holbein’s process at work.

In this episode of Not Just the Tudors, Professor Suzannah Lipscomb tours the exhibition with its curator Dr. Kate Heard and art historian Dr. Elizabeth Goldring.

This episode was produced by Rob Weinberg.

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Transcript

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0:20.0	Everyone leaves a legacy.
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0:44.8	Follow now, wherever you get your podcasts. Between 1526 and 1543, Hans Holbein the Younger,
0:58.0	Hans Holbein the Younger drew and painted portraits of the elite of the Tudor court.
1:04.8	He created preparatory sketches, full-size paintings and miniatures.
1:10.2	He was commissioned by the family of Charles Brandon Duke of Suffolk and Thomas Howard Duke of Norfolk.
1:16.0	Politicians such as Thomas Cromwell and Richard Southwell, ambassadors like Thomas Wyatt and soldiers such as George Cobham were among his sitters.
1:24.9	And then there are the women, Anne Lovell, Anne Berlin, Lady Elliot, Jane Seymour, the Countess
1:30.5	of Surrey and many more.
1:32.8	Each portrait seems to have begun with a drawing taken at a live sitting.
1:37.8	And we can almost see how long those sitting were in the resulting sketches.
1:41.7	Some are more worked up, others focus on the face, which is surrounded
1:45.6	by only the brief outlines of the clothes. And in one, there are no clothes at all.
1:50.1	There is currently an exhibition of these drawings at Buckingham Palace.
1:53.7	It shows the drawings that are in the Royal Collection Trust and it allows us to see Holbein's
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